Sunday Lunch at The Mark Addy (Salford)

*** UPDATE – Unfortunately, After many years of serving great food, The Mark Addy has recently closed its doors. ****

The Mark Addy has been there for as long as I can remember. When I was a teenager, The Mark Addy’s Cheese and Pâté Board was the last word in posh lunching. Urbane Mancunians would cross the bridge to Salford to sit by the River Irwell and drink Mateus Rosé — in a more innocent time, before Harvey Nicks and Selfridges champagne-bars.

Many years had passed before my next visit to The Mark Addy. I attended a gathering of the Gastro Club, a Manchester-based dining club, held there. The charismatic head chef, Robert Owen Brown, served course-after-course of exciting dishes to the gastronomically adventurous.

I don’t propose talking about that evening here, but for those of you who are interested, Deanna Thomas has written an excellent blog-post describing that event. Having said that, here are a few pictures to satisfy your curiosity.

On to the main event, The Sunday Lunch at The Mark Addy. Three of us decided to visit, on a sunny Salford Sunday, and try their Sunday Roast ‘speciality’. We were lucky enough to get a river-side table and ordering was easy…we were there for the beef.

The meat was tender, flavoursome and well cooked (slightly pink in the middle). The potatoes — which had a wonderful taste of beef stock — were some of the best I’d had anywhere. A delicious Yorkshire pudding, cooked in beef dripping, topped the dish, and a generous helping of Mark Addy’s super-savoury gravy covered the whole arrangement. Creamy home-made horseradish added a welcome zing. A superb Sunday Lunch.

I would recommend the Sunday Lunch at The Mark Addy and will definitely visit again — possibly to try their evening menu. Whilst I normally dislike ending on a negative point, however minor, the decor at The Mark Addy has seen better days: the main dining room has a musty and faded appearance. However, the river-side seating offers great views and the food is excellent, so don’t judge this particular book by its cover.